


Half a Million

by Jaela



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, and ride bikes, idk how to tag this at all, they read a lot of books, writer!kyoutani is important to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaela/pseuds/Jaela
Summary: They start reading the same books.





	Half a Million

**Author's Note:**

> Shiptember, Day 11! Watari and Kyoutani have a good dynamic. I like the idea that Kyoutani can express himself better through art than he can through conventional conversation, so I gave him literature here. Literature and texting. I like these two a lot.
> 
> This was originally started for a SASO prompt but wasn't finished on time to be posted, and I've since lost and I can't even remember what the original prompt said anymore, so I'm not sure how well this fits it! If you happen to know what it was or who wanted it though, let me know and I'll send it their way.

It’s an accident, really, the way it starts.

Watari’s bike is in for repairs, so he happens to be taking the train home from school. And that’s where he sees Kyoutani, wrapped fingers leafing through a well-worn paperback. Watari watches his eyes scan down the columns, a frown fixed in place, until he apparently finds what he’s looking for. And Watari could swear he sees the flicker of a _smile._

Besides Kyoutani being just on the edge of scary to begin with, Watari knows better than to interrupt a person while they’re reading. So he doesn’t say anything—just goes to stand beside Kyoutani. Who is so obsessed with his book that he doesn’t even notice Watari skimming the text over his shoulder. Watari doesn’t recognize the scene, but there’s something familiar about the easy flow of the writing. It feels a bit dated, probably a few decades old, and… sort of flowery for someone with a face like Kyoutani’s, if Watari is being frank. He tries to get a peek at the cover, but the angle is all wrong for it.

Watari waits for Kyoutani to check his phone for the time before he speaks up.

“Is it a good book?”

Kyoutani looks up sharply, eyes swimming with confusion until he registers Watari’s face. There are a few questions waiting to form—what are you doing here, why do you care—but what he says is just, “Yeah. It’s one of my favorites.”

Watari smiles, and reads the title when Kyoutani holds it up. “You’ve read it before.”

“Yeah.” Kyoutani rubs at the back of his neck. “Good book for this time of year.” He seems to catch up with the fact that he’s revealing personal feelings, and scowls.

Watari doesn’t say a thing. He just waits it out.

“So? Got something to say? That I don’t look like much of a reader or whatever.”

“Nah.” Watari shrugs. “Just—my parents are always on my case about reading the same books over, when there’s so much out there. But it looks like I found someone who’s the same as me.”

\--

The next morning, Watari takes the train again. He has a copy of the same book, and Kyoutani is the one to notice him this time.

“You could have borrowed mine.”

Watari smiles serenely. “Too impatient. Turns out my mom had a copy, though, so it works out.” He slips a bookmark in between the pages. “You’re right, though! It’s a really good winter book.”

Kyoutani doesn’t seem to know how to react. Finally, he runs a palm over the back of his head and tries, “Read fast. Winter’s almost over.”

“Yeah? I shouldn’t take my time and savour it?”

Kyoutani stares at Watari’s face for a long time. “If you miss something, you can just read it again next year.”

“Fair enough.” Watari gives one more smile before losing himself to the sounds of the train and the turning of pages.

\--

“You haven’t been riding your bike,” Watari’s mother observes one evening. “Were they unable to repair it?”

He shakes his head, fiddles with the corner of a page. “It’s just nice to take the train while the weather’s cold.”

She looks unsatisfied and is about to leave the room when Watari calls out to her. “Do you have any more by this author?”

\--

Watari lends Kyoutani one of his favourite poetry compilations the following week. Kyoutani bites a frayed end off the tape on his middle finger and mumbles that he doesn’t read a lot of poetry.

“You’ll like this, I think,” Watari says evenly. “Hey, give me your phone number.”

Amazingly, Kyoutani doesn’t complain.

He doesn’t ignore Watari, either, when he texts him just before bedtime to ask if he’s started the book.

_I like the one about the sleeping dog,_ Kyoutani responds after typing for a long while.

Watari wishes him good night, and falls asleep with a smile on his face.

\--

“Do you guys have some sort of book club or something?” Yahaba asks after practice one day.

Watari shrugs. “He has good taste.” He suspects Kyoutani is getting the harsher version of this line of questioning later. He shoots him a text to warn him.

\--

By the time Kyoutani has had his hands on every one of Watari’s favourite volumes, they’ve started spending more time with each other than with anyone else on the team. When the weather gets warmer, Kyoutani obtains a bike somehow. He just suddenly has it one day, and pulls up to park it by the 2nd year racks when Watari is locking his up one morning. Watari grins, and neither of them even has to say that they’re heading home together, again.

It’s harder to talk while riding, but they don’t need to talk.

They also don't need to talk when they go to watch the movie adaptation of one of Kyoutani’s favourite novels. They have their phones for that afterwards, after they've both returned home, to throw the best details back and forth until it’s too late for either of them to focus on typing anymore.

It doesn’t surprise Watari at all when spring comes and Kyoutani kisses him over the bike racks. It feels like it’s been coming for a long time.

“You should write something,” Watari tells him on a park bench on a weekend afternoon.

Kyoutani rubs at his nose, dappled light form the trees above shifting on his arm.

“I used to want to be a writer.”

“You don’t still?” Watari has him pinned in a few words.

Winter was quieter, but spring has its own kind of peace.

“You’d better not read it a million times,” Kyoutani says, and pulls a tattered little notebook out of his back pocket.

Watari lets it fall open in his palm, scans the crowded writing on the tiny pages. “Don’t worry. I think I can settle for half a million.”


End file.
